


the landscape after cruelty

by humanveil



Category: Prison Break
Genre: Episode: s04e06 Blow Out, M/M, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-11-06 12:34:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17939810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/humanveil/pseuds/humanveil
Summary: Here they sit: Michael, Alex, forgiveness. The moon.





	the landscape after cruelty

**Author's Note:**

> i've been trying to finish some old ficlets, and this was one i found on my phone. i haven't actually watched season four in a little while, but hopefully it's still okay! 
> 
> title comes from snow and dirty rain by richard siken.

Alex hears him before he sees him, the cadence of Michael’s step a familiarity, something he’s burnt into his memory. It’s lighter tonight, almost hesitant. As if Michael isn’t confident in his decision to approach. 

He comes up behind Alex but doesn’t speak, doesn’t move, doesn’t prompt. Just works his way to the docks and settles on a crate two steps behind him, the sounds of his being mixing with the sounds of the sea: breathing, quiet and steady, the scratch of a shoe against the pavement, of skin on skin as he plays with his hands. Absentminded. Nervous habit, maybe. A sign he’s thinking, definitely.  

Alex wonders of what. Wonders if they’ll talk or if riddles and rhymes will suffice. Thinks,  _is there a difference?_ With them. Does it make any difference. 

Michael says, “I did it for you.”

Nothing else, just that: plain and simple, quiet but assured. It’s not what Alex had been expecting; is too open, too  _honest_ , for that. 

He doesn’t need to think, though. Doesn’t need to wonder what Michael is talking about. Alex turns, looks at Michael over his shoulder, at his frame cast in shadows, the dim light of a darkening sky barely enough to make out the features of his face. 

_I don’t care_ , is what he’d said before, and what he’d meant was  _it doesn’t make a difference either way._

He’s not sure how true that is, now. Not when he’s looking at Michael and Michael is looking back, the sincerity of his admission obvious. Almost tangible. 

It seems like something he should care about. 

Alex nods, small and slow, his eyes fixed on Michael’s the entire time. Words are on the tip of his tongue, jumbled and incomplete: a thanks he hasn’t yet formulated. He stays quiet for now. 

Thinks,  _there’s always time later._

It isn’t true, not really. This, what they’re doing, it’s unpredictable. Volatile. Alex has learnt not to get comfortable, that doing so is almost always a mistake; and yet, there is a security to Michael Scofield. Contradictory as it is. 

It’s why he’s still here. 

Alex is the one to break eye contact. He turns back to the landscape in front of them and listens to the water, to the light crash of ripples against the dock, listens to the wind and looks at the sky, at the swirl of greys and blues, the hint of a half-crescent moon above the horizon. 

Michael remains, even as the silence stretches. Alex can feel him, can hear him. He leans back, leans closer, the proximity an imitation of intimacy, a silent act of acknowledgement, and there they sit: Michael, Alex, the moon. 

Forgiveness or something like it. 


End file.
